Things that I don't like about music today.

[jroyen]

1) Artists' who try hard to be something by nature that they are not.

2) Artists' who try hard to be everything to everyone, creating a dilution.

3) Artists' who take themselves, and their craft, far too seriously.

4) A music industry that has become engrossed in an edgy hipness, and coolness factor. It has bridged the gap over many musical genres, creating sameness.

5) Focus groups have forced intuition to take a backseat, in some instances.

6) Music has become more about image than ever - in some instances, music has taken a backseat.

7) Computers have enabled the lightning-speed creation of emotions, feelings, and trends that are more precise and controlled - the artist becomes further obscured.

8) Audio has further become corporately amalgamated into video, and therefore, somewhat downsized.

9) Merchandizing has become an Olympic event onto itself, in maximizing profits at *any* cost.

10) Marketing campaigns that can inundate an oversaturated music buying public with new images, sounds, and information in every conceivable medium - like previously has never been seen.

11) A music buying public that is increasingly aware of volume sales; as this phenomenon gains greater prominence daily, it creates a vicious cycle throughout the industry.

12) Sampling; I do not like it, or find acceptable.

13) The lack of dynamic range, and/or computer processing for computer processing's
sake.

Josh

[Dan Steely]

So what's wrong with sampling.... Did you ever listen to Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back by Public Enemy or Three Feet High And Rising by De La Soul. Pure masterpieces of sampling if you ask me.

[Beagle]

Originally posted by Dan Steely
So what's wrong with sampling.... Did you ever listen to Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back by Public Enemy or Three Feet High And Rising by De La Soul. Pure masterpieces of sampling if you ask me. Clever yes, original no. Same with Set Adrift On Memory Bliss by P.M. Dawn. But **** like Janet Jacksons last record and the sampling of Ventura Highway and You're So Vain is just a total lack of talent and ideas. It's just using other peoples hooks because you are too lazy or talentless to write your own.

Josh has made many very good points, and he is way correct on a lot of them.

[Andy]

When was the last time someone had an original idea?

[Mike]

Originally posted by Beagle
But **** like Janet Jacksons last record and the sampling of Ventura Highway and You're So Vain is just a total lack of talent and ideas. It's just using other peoples hooks because you are too lazy or talentless to write your own.

Well, I wouldn't call Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis talentless by any stretch, you don't have that many hits over that period of time unless you're doing something right. I think they're great!

[Dan C]

Originally posted by jroyen
1) Artists' who try hard to be something by nature that they are not.

2) Artists' who try hard to be everything to everyone, creating a dilution.

3) Artists' who take themselves, and their craft, far too seriously.
edit
Josh

This isn't a slam against you Josh, you make some very good points. Let me just say that I'm sick of this generic term 'Artists'.

'Musician' at best. 'Entertainer' is more like it.
Is Kid Rock really an 'Artist'? His record label says so.
I don't, and I doubt Kid would ever call himself an 'artist'. Geesh.

In the golden age of jazz in the 50's or classical in the dawn of 20th century, the music makers didn't routinely call themselves 'artits' even though most of them were clearly making art. The Beatles took their work very seriously, but did they always call themsleves 'Artists'? Well, Yoko did. But we all know how we feel about Yoko.;)
Dan C

[Andy]

I only know one person that plays and gets paid for it. He dislikes the term entertainer. He has told me he doesn't give a damn if the audience is entertained as long as they listen.

[Dan C]

Originally posted by Andy
I only know one person that plays and gets paid for it. He dislikes the term entertainer. He has told me he doesn't give a damn if the audience is entertained as long as they listen.

These days, it seems 'artist' is used as a catch all for all of the acts signed to a label. I understand what your friend is saying.

However, is it fair to call a pre-packaged boy band or a fake busted girl dancer/singer an 'ARTIST'? Are they producing art, or are they entertaining?



"I am the entertainer, the idol of my age
I make all kinds of money when I go on the stage
You see me in the papers, I've been in the magazines
But if I go cold, I won't get sold
I get put in the back in the discount rack
Like another can of beans"

Billy Joel, "The Entertainer"

And I think Billy Joel is an artist, BTW :)
Dan C

[Highway Star]

Easy Josh, you may be sending a red flag to Homeland Security. They do monitor this site you know! :eek:

(actually I know what you mean, but the marriage of art and capitalism is always gonna suck)

[Grant]

OK. Whatever it is, this borrowing from other artists or musical styles has always been a part of creating music. It happened with classical, and it has happened with every other style before and since, including rock and rap. All that has changed is the method.

Now, rap music, by it's very beginnings, has incorporated the use of other people's recordings. Why? The people who created it didn't have musical instruments and/or the means to get them. Using records manipulated on a turntable was also fresh and creative. The problem is that they used copyrighted works without the consent of the original creator.

It is sometimes painful to hear your favorite song reworked into something that sounds unpleasing to you. But, many who like or create the music aren't familiar with or don't have any emotional attachment to the original songs either because of age or culture. That is why sampling and the like exist.

I suspect that many of the current hip-hop/rap crowd would rather create and produce original music but the state of the industry makes this difficult for many. First, the audience, weaned on it, expects it. Second, the economics of recording and producing live musicians is still more expensive, especially when a record label doesn't give the artist much to work with. And third, it's part of what hip-hop/rap is. Country music has it's fiddles, banjos, and steel guitars; hard rock has it's amplified electric guitars, and R&B has it's heavy rhythm. Sure, all musical styles borrow and take from each other, but each also has it's basic or traditional elements that make it what it is.

[Andy]

There is nothing new under the sun.

[Kevin Sypolt]

Originally posted by Grant
Using records manipulated on a turntable was also fresh and creative.
Ha! This reminds me of a situation that arose just last month. I had just received my new MMF7 TT, and had it hooked up and was listening to my first MFSL LP in some ten years. I was in heaven! My wife and daughter came home, and the wife looked at me like I was nuts... That's normal... I'm an audiophile. Anyway, my daughter (12)comes into the room, sees the TT playing, and says, "Cool Dad, can I try it out?" Try it out? It's already playing a record! "No Dad, I want to make it go back and forth!" Argghhh! I then explain to her the fine points of analog audio, better soundstaging, etc. She shrugs, and leaves the room in disgust that I won't "use" my "record player" correctly... Although the next week, she was bragging to a friend about how much better a record sounds than CDs. I guess it is our duty in life to carry on the audiophile legacy...

[Gary]

Originally posted by Kevin Sypolt

....."Cool Dad, can I try it out?" Try it out? It's already playing a record! "No Dad, I want to make it go back and forth!" Argghhh!

"CrInGe!!!"

[Richard Feirstein]

"Artist": Bob Dylan perfers the term "Song and Dance Man". Can't argue with that.:p

[Bob Lovely]

Originally posted by Grant
OK. Whatever it is, this borrowing from other artists or musical styles has always been a part of creating music. It happened with classical, and it has happened with every other style before and since, including rock and rap. All that has changed is the method.

Now, rap music, by it's very beginnings, has incorporated the use of other people's recordings. Why? The people who created it didn't have musical instruments and/or the means to get them. Using records manipulated on a turntable was also fresh and creative. The problem is that they used copyrighted works without the consent of the original creator.

It is sometimes painful to hear your favorite song reworked into something that sounds unpleasing to you. But, many who like or create the music aren't familiar with or don't have any emotional attachment to the original songs either because of age or culture. That is why sampling and the like exist.

I suspect that many of the current hip-hop/rap crowd would rather create and produce original music but the state of the industry makes this difficult for many. First, the audience, weaned on it, expects it. Second, the economics of recording and producing live musicians is still more expensive, especially when a record label doesn't give the artist much to work with. And third, it's part of what hip-hop/rap is. Country music has it's fiddles, banjos, and steel guitars; hard rock has it's amplified electric guitars, and R&B has it's heavy rhythm. Sure, all musical styles borrow and take from each other, but each also has it's basic or traditional elements that make it what it is.

Grant,

Good historical perspective on Rap and it's origins and relationship to other types of music. With all candor, creativity, today, is truly hampered because artists are forced to choose a "musical style" in order to fit into ever increasingly tight Radio formats that demand a "certain sound". In the old days of the wide Top 40 Radio format variety was considered creative and desirable. A popular artist could a Pop record followed by a jazzy record followed by a bluesy record and Radio would play them on the same format because it was, simply, great music (there are many examples, historically). Not today!....and that is why we hear what we hear from contemporary music!

Bob :eek:

[Grant]

Bob,

Yes, and it isn't really just radio. It's the audience and the record executives.

Anytime an artist comes out with something different from what they usually do, the marketing department gets thrown into a tizzy! All they usually know how to do is market to one specific group. Maybe you'll get the head of the department that doesn't like an artist or the music and the album suffers as a result.

The audience? They have been force-fed crap for so long that it's all they know. Remember, we now have a whole generation that grew up knowing nothing but deliberate corporate manipulation and sameness in music, where style and image takes importance over the music itself. And, music is not political for them like it is for us baby-boomers. It just isn't a part of what their youth culture is about like it is ours. They just don't care that much.

[ED in NY]

What do I not like about music these days ?

That's easy !

1. No new material from Stevie Ray Vaughan, just posthumous releases.

2. The often over slick sound of classic CD reissues.

3. The lack of audiophile reissues.

4. The price of concert tickets.

5. The Fillmore East is still closed.

6. Blues still gets next to no radio play.

7. The Beatles CD's STILL sound lousy.

8. Music has been replaced on MTV with wrestling.

9. Cream still hasn't got back together.

10. I still can't figure out what Ozzy is saying half the time.

Best - ED

[Andy]

:D

[BradOlson]

But in the 1970's, there were lots of rock bands that used steel guitar heavily as part of their style such as Marshall Tucker Band, Amazing Rhythm Aces, early Eagles, and others while quite a bit of today's country does is really starting to have rap flavors. Examples: The Bellamy Brothers started this with "Country Rap" and it really got boosted lately with Toby Keith's hit "I Wanna Talk About Me" from his "Pull My Chain" CD with the verses being rapped when he started out as pure country with "Should've Been a Cowboy", while Cyndi Thomson who's music style really isn't all that country and is overall more pop than country like lots of today's "country" artists has a song called "Things I Would Do" on her current CD entitled "My World" which does have a couple verses rapped and there have been others as well. Tim McGraw has even sampled part of "Indian Reservation" for his hit "Indian Outlaw" on his "Not a Moment Too Soon" CD and sang "Cherokee People, Cherokee Tribe, so proud to live, so proud to die" with the same melody as "Indian Reservation." Neal McCoy in his concerts and on his self-titled album has a song called "Hillbilly Rap" where he raps the Ballad of Jed Clampett.

[Gary]

Country? Rap? Country Rap? :(

What's this world coming to? :confused:

"Proud to be a dinosaur" Gary :D

[Mike]

Originally posted by Grant
I suspect that many of the current hip-hop/rap crowd would rather create and produce original music but the state of the industry makes this difficult for many. First, the audience, weaned on it, expects it. Second, the economics of recording and producing live musicians is still more expensive, especially when a record label doesn't give the artist much to work with.

Actually, licensing is more expensive than recording original music. As a result, rap has moved away from sampling and towards original music. In the early days of rap they would just sample and not pay. Now the lawyers are on top of it.

[Grant]

Originally posted by Mike


Actually, licensing is more expensive than recording original music. As a result, rap has moved away from sampling and towards original music. In the early days of rap they would just sample and not pay. Now the lawyers are on top of it.

Good point. It IS changing. Anyone who listens to any hip-hop knows this. But the big-name artists still do it bigtime.

Rap is a wholly American art form like jazz. I think the reason many don't like it is because of the lyrical content and/or the fact that they can't relate to the culture.

[Andy]

Just out of curiosity what is the “culture” of rap?

[Grant]

Originally posted by Andy
Just out of curiosity what is the “culture” of rap?

Actually, it is hip-hop culture. It's hard tpo describe. But, every culture in the world has subcultures. For the US we have, say the biker culture, sports culture, southern culture, rock culture...you get my drift? It is a style, or a way of life. Hip-hop culture comes from the urban areas of large cities, with it's orgins in The Bronx. It is the product of urban black, latino, and some white teens. It evolved from the late 60s when club DJs and radio DJs talked, or "rapped" over the music. It was usually some kind of political or social commentary.

Musically, if you wanted to strech it, "rapping" existed in country music back in the 50s and 60s. It just evolved. It was natural because back then, R&B and country music had a lot in common. After all, they both grew out of the southern culture.

Recall
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"-The Rightous Brothers
"The End Of The World"-Skeeter Davis
"Big Bad John"-Jimmy Dean
"Hold On To What You've Got"-Joe Tex
"There's Something On Your Mind"-Bobby Marchan
"Leader Of The Pack"-The Shangri-Las

They all either had an insturmental "breakdown" where the singer spoke a part, or had a story narration in the song.

[Andy]

Oh.